The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-06-18
Special Contributors.
CONCERNING SNoBS.
BY HATTIE TYING GRISwOLD.
columbus, Wis.,

columbus, Wis.,
AS long ago as Thackeray wrote his
immortal Book of Snobs, he had dis
covered in the Court Circular one of
the chief causes of the existence Of the
innumerable company of English Snobs.
He quotes the description of the dress
of Miss Smoky from that journal, as
follows:
"Habit de Cour, composed of yel-
low nankeen illusion dress over slip
of rich pea green corduroy, trimmed
en- tablier with boquets of Brussels
sprouts; the body and sleeves hand
somely trimmed with celimonco, and
festooned with pink train, and white
radishes. Head dress, carrot and lap
pels )" and proceeds to say: 'This is
what you read. Oh, mothers, daugh-
ters, aunts, grandmothers of England,
this is the sort of writing put in the
newspapers for you. How can you help
being the mothers, daughters, ETC., of
Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set
before you ?" How, indeed, might have
answered the wives, mothers, aunts and
grandmothers of England, at that time
and how, indeed, might ask the moth
ers and aunts, and grandmothers of
America, at the present time, when the
pernicious foreign fashion has taken
root here, and is fourishing like green
bay tree. In the time when Thacke-
ray wrote, this food for Snobs was
almost unknown in this favored land
but for many years now it has been
furnished as demanded, by large part
of the press of this country. The con-
sequence has been that the spirit of
snobbery, always latent, if not active,
in every community, has strengthened
by what it has fed upon, until now we
are really in danger of rivaling that
hitherto unrivaled nation of Snobs-the
English. If you do not believe this,
my dear reader, just observe the news
papers of the land for few weeks
read the Washington correspondence
read Badeau's letters the long
and minute descriptions of rich mems
homes, their families, their movements,
their art treasures, their opinions
which are given ad nauseam-every
week to public which eagerly de
YOURS them-and which has become de-
moralized enough to demand them. We
have not one court circular-but
hundred. Every newspaper of any
pretension has its society column, and
treats its readers to full description
of the toilets of the leading ladies at
every gathering of Importance; it gives
elaborate descriptions of private lunch
es, and dinners, and teas, until Mrs.
Flunkey cannot invite dozen cronies
to lunch with her, without the whole
country being informed just what kind
of table cloth was on the table
whether the decorations were of null
lein-or of plantain leaves-and wheth-
er they partook of sausages or saurkraut.
The dresses of the coterie are all so ac-
curately described-that we are led to
infer that the descriptions were furn-
ished by the ladies sthemselves-andt the
same may be said of the description of
the lunch itself.
Day by day the press teens with the
descriptions of the receptions at the
White House, those of the Cabinet la
dies-those of the rich nobodies-who
make up the rank and file of what is
called society. Whole columns will be
given to the description of any unusual
extrayagance in entertaining, and the
more vulgar the display the more space
is accorded to it. If any further proof
is needed of the growing snobbishness
of our people, it could certainly be had
in the nauseating accounts of Mrs.
Cleveland, and all her unimportant
sayings and doings, to which the coun-
try has been treated during the last
year. The very mouthpiece of the
genus Snob could not outdo our Amer
iean journals in offensive adulation,
aud sickening personal mention. Fifty
years ago-yes, thirty years ago-this
sort of thing would have disgusted and
repelled the American public. They
would have frowned it down; they
would have stamped upon it. Their
self-respect would have revolted from
reading it. They would have buried
the newspapers that INDUCED in it-a
thousand fathoms deep. Now they